Roberto Mancini aimed his derby frustration at Mario Balotelli and Samir Nasri
after Manchester City surrendered their 37-game unbeaten run at the Etihad
Stadium to Manchester United.

Having surprisingly selected Balotelli ahead of Carlos Tévez, Mancini proceeded to substitute the Italian forward early in the second half. Balotelli then, not for the first time, ignored the manager as he walked down the tunnel after a disappointing performance.

Some of Balotelli’s team-mates were equally unimpressive, but Mancini singled him out for criticism before questioning Nasri’s contribution to a defensive wall after Robin van Persie’s free-kick deflected off the Frenchman and into the goal to win the game two minutes into stoppage time. “There are words I can’t say,” Mancini said, when asked about Balotelli’s selection.

“It is a bad feeling at this moment, when you lose a derby in the last seconds, but the manager should do his choice properly. I decided to play with Mario because he could cause a problem for their defenders. He is young and can run and cause big difficulties for them.

“In the first half, we had to sub Vinny [Kompany] and I wanted to wait to see if Mario could play well in the second half. But after five minutes, I saw he played like he played in the first half and I didn’t want this.

“I love Mario as a guy and a player, but it is important for him to start to think about his job. He has everything to play well, but we wanted more from him and he cannot play like he played today. I saw players like that in my life with fantastic quality and end up with nothing, but I don’t want this for him.”

If City’s chances were hampered by captain Kompany limping out with a groin strain they were killed off by Van Persie grabbing the late winner - thanks largely to Nasri’s weak attempt to block the shot by the forward who rejected a move to City in favour of Old Trafford in the summer.

“We made a mistake and only put three players there.” Mancini said. “Actually, we had two and a half players there, we didn’t cover very well. If you need to put your face there, you need to put your face there.

“The player shooting was Van Persie and he shot very well. I called Carlos to return to the wall, but I was too far away on the bench.

“Van Persie scores against every team and once United signed Van Persie they improved a lot. But we have four great strikers and we can win the title again this year. We can win the double. We have to work hard and not make mistakes.

“We cannot keep conceding goals because it is difficult to recover. We have the spirit to recover six points, but we must now win four or five games in a row.”